Addicted to the Internet? Lessons in Self-Reflection and Simplicity

Yesterday, my computer got some horrible virus attached to it that attacked with a vengeance. I mean, the fake pop-up warnings were lighting up the screen faster than anything EVER moves on this thing and I couldn’t keep up. I scrambled to find my spyware programs and get things running, but even that was infiltrated and the virus kept corrupting those files each time I tried to launch them. I eventually found some outstanding help on a forum that walked me through a series of steps, and after a few rounds of quarantines, things ended up ok (for now, at least…knock on wood - and I’m not even a superstitionist…but still).

During the hours that all of this chaos was taking place I realized something, and I’m not sure that what I discovered was a good thing. What became quite evident is the fact that, ummm…well, I just might be addicted to the Internet. I didn’t know I was addicted to anything, but the thought of not having access to the parade of sites I routinely visit, caused a little bout of panic to ensue and let’s just say that I don’t think that is a good thing.

Sure, I work online. My business is run through the Internet and of course this blog and most of the freelance writing I do is via the Web as well, so I guess I have somewhat of an excuse. But the anxiety I felt when I wasn’t sure if my computer would ever be my friend again wasn’t really over whether I could get work done, it was sort of about “what will I do if I can’t keep up with everything while it’s out”…and THAT is what caused me to pause a moment and assess things.

That constant cycle of social networking and commenting; tweeting and emailing; stumbling on Stumble and tumbling on Tumblr; networking for my blog and reading other blogs; and, and, and…it’s almost a bit exhausting just thinking about it all.

While I am good at getting my “real work” done in between all of the aforementioned tasks and think that I stay pretty self-disciplined when it comes to keeping my priorities in check, I still startled myself a bit with the realization that I was acting like I NEEDED the Internet.

It’s such a different world we live in now, isn’t it? When I was my kids’ age, I typed school papers on a typewriter and I sat in my room with a phone that had a CORD coiled up on the end of it. I didn’t have Google or Photoshop. I didn’t text my parents and I actually had to unfold a map to find my way to a music concert.  I’m not saying I wish things were still like that for my children (or for myself, for that matter), but man, there was something sort of nice about that simplicity (though I didn’t realize it was simple in the slightest at the time).

The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that getting back to a level of simplicity and peace was really all up to me. The gadgets and advancements we have today are amazing. The opportunities we have to correspond and reach out to people who we might never get to meet otherwise are incredible. The things we can accomplish and the speed at which we can multi-task? Sheesh…it‘s mind-boggling if you really think about it.  And as cool as all of that is, I realized yesterday that it’s also such a tiny part of where I want my focus to be.

I love my time online and the access I have to such a vast world which opens up with mouse clicks and keystrokes, but I also love a lot of other things on the other side of my computer screen that might get pushed aside from time-to-time when I get too wrapped up in the world within the web.

Reminders come in all sorts of disguises. And while malware is probably my least favorite of the masked suggestion methods, in a really odd way I’m somewhat glad that I had moments to pause and reflect on my time, my life, my focus and my priorities. You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge, eh?